A Woman Named Drown...

It was hot, as it always is in Mumbai, and we were all back at our hotel after watching No One Killed Jessica. I was in my room, everyone had gone back to theirs, getting ready for the evening. We were supposed to be at Munira's reception venue by 7pm and it was already 5pm. Anjali and I shared one room, Apeksha and Mandy were in the other room. I was sitting on one of the beds, and I could hear Anjali in the bathroom. I was done with my bath, and I should have been getting up and getting ready, we were already late, but I just sat there on the bed in my towel, listening to sound of running shower. Absorbing the sound, her presence. Just the fact that she was around. I felt good. I felt calm. I felt...safe, loved.

I am missing them all today, my people.

I wish I could fly. I wish I could go sit next to them, not talk, not do anything. Just sit next to them, absorb their energies, be around them, feel their presence. And once in a while, have them look up at me and smile. Just that. Not more. Just that.

Two Countries...

Skin remembers how long the years grow

when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel

of singleness, feather lost from the tail

of a bird, swirling onto a step,

swept away by someone who never saw

it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,

slept by itself, knew how to raise a

see-you-later hand. But skin felt

it was never seen, never known as

a land on the map, nose like a city,

hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque

and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.

Skin had hope, that's what skin does.

Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.

Love means you breathe in two countries.

And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,

deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own.

Even now, when skin is not alone,

it remembers being alone and thanks something larger

that there are travelers, that people go places

larger than themselves.

- Naomi Shihab Nye

June...

"When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn’t make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares still walking. When we hold each other we feel not safe, but better. “It’s all right” we whisper, “I’m here, I love you.” and we lie: “I’ll never leave you.” For just a moment or two the darkness doesn’t seem so bad." — Neil Gaiman

Flight...

I should be getting up, eat something, dress up...I have been dealing with it for hours now...but it doesn't seem to budge...like a pest, it annoyingly follows me every where I go...follows me like a shadow...fucking up my neatly lined brain on its way...I check the time again, I have to meet a friend in exactly an hour's time and knowing Mumbai traffic, I should be in an auto now...instead ...I am typing this...why?


I open Facebook, voyeurism is so common these days, we don't even blink before nosing our way into others' life. Lots of photos, people love posting their pics, I wonder why...what makes them want to put up their pics for one and all to see? Then there are updates about who's having lunch with whom...someone's put up a video of catwalk fails....there's dear D posting an article about injustice against women of Saudi Arabia...then music videos...all hip hop, trance, club...no one likes mellow songs these days? Maybe, they do, but are afraid to accept that they like meaningful songs? It's not cool to like slow sentimental songs, you're sissy if you do. Whatever. Who cares? I need a hatchet to drive this thing away, it's not going away. It is instead laughing at my silly attempt to ignore it.


I ask the friend if it's okay if I am late by an hour.


It wins, I give in. 

A Person, A Book, A Love...

Sometimes you weep for life, sometimes life weeps for you.

Three Things...

Erm, yes, I am alive

Jasmines...

It's true, it could happen, even this late...